Your Extremely Important Yearly Reminder That Mandarins Are Back In Season

Look. I know this is a strange premise for an article. I understand that, usually, you come to noted online internet magazine Junkee dot com to look at videos of dogs in ball pits, read obsessively in-depth recaps of terrible TV shows or be gently indoctrinated into the tenets of 21st-century sociali — dah, I mean, catch up on the latest news in politics.

But whenever we can, we like to showcase those small, strange parts of Australia we all shared growing up. Whether it’s the astonishing number of your childhood shows that exist in full on YouTube, the sad decline of our once-proud nation’s Big Things or an exhaustive behind-the-scenes look at Play School, the oddball collective experiences of Australia’s youngest adult generation bind us together, give us a sense of identity and shared humanity, and provide a small measure of comfort for the coming ecological apocalypse and the fact we’ll never be able to afford a house.

In that spirit, it bears mentioning that the greatest time of year is finally upon us once again: mandarin season.

Mandarins are back. Mandarins are back. Everyone get excited because mandarins are back. pic.twitter.com/eFqc8GbIC3

— Sam Regester (@samregester) April 17, 2016

It’s important, right from the outset, that we clarify what kind of mandarins we’re referring to: Imperial mandarins. They are the only type of mandarin worth the name, and if you disagree please leave this area for your own good and the good of the people around you. Similar restrictions apply for those who don’t like mandarins at all. You’re lucky not to be on a federal watchlist as it is, so why you would push your luck by coming here I have no idea.

The humble mandarin is an Australian institution, a staple of lunchboxes and fruit bowls everywhere. By law, every Australian schoolkid must consume at least two mandarins each recess, or face the prospect of having citrus juice squirted in their eyes by their vitamin C-rich classmates. The coming of mandarins each year heralds many things: the end of summer, the start of football seasons of all stripes, and a sad farewell to watermelon, the True Good Fruit of summertime.

Mandarin season lasts from April through to October — seven glorious months where the nation gorges itself stupid on easy-to-peel pieces of fruity joy and those of us who burn easily venture warily outside to resupply while the Sun’s otherwise all-consuming fury is muted by winter. Australians will gather to worship at huge, elaborately stacked displays of mandarins in produce sections, and invariably pull the best-looking ones out from the bottom of the pile to make a substantial portion of the rest collapse onto the floor.

Look at them, glistening in the yellow supermarket light that makes them look slightly more ripe than they really are. How solemn. How wise.

So here’s to the next seven months of actually remembering to eat fruit each day like you’re supposed to, learning how to discreetly spit 17 mandarin seeds in a row into the bin underneath your desk so your colleagues don’t ostracise you, and absentmindedly rubbing your eyes after handling the skin and experiencing severe pain for the next 45 minutes. Mandarins are fucking great.